MSI Big Bang XPower Review: X58, Military Style

Article Index

Cinebench R11.5, Low-Res Crysis

Cinebench R11.5 64bit

Rendering Performance

Cinebench R11.5

Cinebench 11.5 is the latest update to Maxon's 3D rendering benchmark suite and the third major iteration of the Cinebench series. As with R10, CB11.5 includes a single-threaded, multi-threaded, and OpenGL test. We've focused on the first two tests as part of our processor comparison; the OpenGL test is a GPU-specific benchmark and is meant to represent professional graphics performance. Scores between the two benchmarks are not directly comparable, although it is possible to render R10's workload using 11.5, should you feel inclined.

The EVGA's slightly higher results, in this case, are probably provided courtesy of slight differences in how Turbo Boost functioned during the test runs.

Low-Resolution Gaming: Crysis

Taking the GPU out of the Equation

For our next set of tests, we moved on to some low-resolution in-game benchmarking with Crysis. When testing processors and motherboards in these games, we drop the resolution to 800x600 and reduce all of the in-game graphical options to their minimum values to isolate CPU and memory performance as much as possible. However, any in-game effects, which control the level of detail for the games' physics engines and particle systems, are left at their maximum values, since these actually do place some load on the CPU rather than GPU.

Nothing much to see here. When it comes to choosing an X58 board, identical performance is a given, save in instances of misconfiguration or malfunction.